In the age of smartphones, tablets and social media, it is easy to understand that no great idea or product was created in a vacuum -- they owe their success to standing on the shoulders of giants. After all, no one considers Alexander Graham Bell the inventor of the smartphone or Thomas Edison of the podcast. The technology sector largely depends on the ability of entrepreneurs to feed off one another, competing to make the next great innovation that no one has thought of before.

Yet today, the climate of innovation that has advanced technology at such a rapid pace, is being stymied by a patent system ill-adapted to the realities of modern information technology. An outmoded patent application review process and a thicket of overbroad, overlapping software patents creates minefields for everyone from startups to major tech companies. Even worse, the deficiencies in the patent system have created a cottage industry of opportunists known as “patent trolls” that trap our best technology companies in an onslaught of lawsuits, slowing innovation and, according to one estimate, costing our economy $29 billion in 2011. Alarmingly, these patent trolls now account for a majority of all patent litigation in the United States.

Just this month President Barack Obamaindicated that news of the patent troll problem had made its way to the West Wing: "They don't actually produce anything themselves,” the President said. “They're just trying to essentially leverage and hijack somebody else's idea and see if they can extort some money out of them."

Our patent system was originally designed to foster innovation, and allow any person with a new, useful invention to practice the invention exclusively for a fixed period of time. This is now a uniform 20 years – which may work for the pharmaceutical industry, but is absurdly long for the rapid product cycles of much of high tech.

What has allowed these patent trolls - companies whose main product is lawsuits - to so easily extort innovators for massive settlements disguised as technology licensing fees? Broadly speaking, it is because it has become too easy to secure vague and overbroad patents, particularly for the amorphous category of “software.”

In the past, patents were reserved for genuine inventions. Now our broken system allows applicants to patent obvious tweaks to existing technologies, and abstract, jargon-filled descriptions of commonplace activities conducted with a computer. Individuals or companies claim to own patents to ubiquitous features of the Internet-enabled economy -- such as using a virtual shopping cart online, updating smartphone apps, scrolling through pages, or serving ads in an online video.

Patents were never intended to protect broad, abstract concepts that can be implemented in many different ways. Nevertheless, such patents are now handed out regularly, creating an arms race amongst tech companies to have a second-strike capability in the event their own innovations are challenged. In the hands of a troll, every overbroad software patent is a weapon with which to sue and extort huge settlements -- and increasingly they seek thousands of smaller settlements from startups and other companies that lack the financial and legal resources to defend themselves. Indeed, the abundance of vague and abstract software patents (a single smartphone may be protected by hundreds of thousands of patents means that trolls have never had it easier.

The threat posed by trolls forces tech companies to retain large legal teams and expend resources that could otherwise go to hiring more innovative designers and engineers. If our leaders do not act, the benefits of innovation will someday be outweighed by the mounting costs.

In addition to President Obama’s recent excoriation of patent trolls, his call for “smarter” patent laws was also spot-on. Congress and the Administration must take concrete actions to curb patent trolls’ ability to launch frivolous and costly lawsuits. The SHIELD Act introduced yesterday in the House by Rep. Peter DeFazio, D-Ore. and Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, would help protect innovators from trolls by making the plaintiff pay the legal costs when their baseless lawsuits are ultimately rejected in court. While the SHIELD Act won't fix our dysfunctional patent system, it would chip away at the insanity that is stifling innovation and costing our economy billions.

The rest of us feel the consequences of these lawsuits. The costs of patent litigation roll down-market: the pace of innovation slows and consumers pay more for less. We should celebrate and foster innovation and economic growth -- and ensure that companies that invest in innovative products and services are not targets for the patent vultures circling overhead.